we build, then we break
by but seriously
Summary: AU: "You can try and rationalize it all you want, Caroline," Stefan says, wiping blood from his mouth, "but it still hurts, doesn't it?" In which a human Caroline realizes that maybe the animal attacks plaguing this quaint little town aren't really animal attacks after all. / ensemble cast


_as always, for dj. gosh, i'm using italics - it's like she's dead or something._

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**we build,**

**_then we break_**

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**prologue**

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When Bill Forbes announced that he was getting a divorce, what surprised people was not the divorce itself, but the fact that Caroline (Student Body President, cheer captain, bibliophile and reigning Bubblegum Blowing Champion of New England) had not been expecting it at all.

She should have seen it coming, of course, when Daddy bought plane tickets for her to spend her 17th birthday in Los Angeles with him, insisting that it was a special gift for a special occasion.

"Oh," he'd added over the phone, the distance and the time difference making him sound brusque all of a sudden, "my business associate will be there. Steven. You've met him. You don't mind, do you?"

Of course she'd said no, but Caroline couldn't help thinking that the picture of their birthday dinner in the sparkling, crystal frame Steven had got her would have looked so much better with Liz in it. Not that she hadn't tried to get her mother to come along.

"No, you go," Liz said. Even with her back turned, Caroline knew Liz had her mouth set in a straight line. Caroline sat on her overstuffed suitcase (the third one) and, in between huffs of trying to zip her luggage up, tried to convince her mother to pack a bag for herself as well. But even her attempts were half-hearted: Daddy had just bought one ticket, and Caroline just wanted to get the hell out of cramped, hot and humid New York for the summer.

Caroline was set loose on the town, tearing up Rodeo Drive with his credit cards and a thirst for candy short-shorts of every colour to match the different colours she paints her toenails every few days. She managed to put a (very faint, but still noticeable) rosy glow to her pale skin after like, six hours of sunbathing for five days straight. She barely even thought of home, because even thinking of the loud city with the glaring lights and dusty yellow cabs that melted in the heat exhausted her. Days were bright, her dresses were short, and the nights filled with bonfires and cute lifeguards who strummed her soft indie music on their guitars when Daddy was fast asleep.

And Steven was nice.

Steven was everywhere, in fact. When Daddy flipped her French toast in the morning. In the evening to "drop off some laundry". Picking Daddy up on weekends for brunch, and bringing her along as an afterthought.

So she _should_ have seen it coming when Daddy, with a forkful of cherry-chocolate mousse cake on its way to his mouth, announced: "I've fallen in love with Steven!"

"Seriously." In the middle of her birthday dinner. With Steven's flashy fuschia shirt winking at her in the wink of the candles. A toast and an announcement, in between bites of cherries that her father was gay, and she was supposed to smile.

"Steven is moving to LA to be with me!"

Like she was supposed to be happy for them.

There were probably ten different ways to react to this kind of announcement, but throwing up in the bowl of cherries Steven was passing to her probably wasn't one of them.

People say you can see certain things much clearer when you look back.

Bullshit.

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Mystic Falls is… quaint.

That's all she can say, really. Mossy trees, patches of colourful flowers here and there. Friendly people waving hello and welcoming them when Liz stopped by a gas station to pick up the day's news and a soda for an indifferent Caroline. (Seriously. At a _gas_ station.)

"This is it," Liz announces as they pull into the driveway of a (quaint) yellow house with (quaint) ivy inching up the sides of the windows, with a (quaint) tree that shaded the lawn, providing excellent space for (quaint) afternoons spent reading and sipping lemonade from glasses dripping with condensation. Caroline sees it all flash before her eyes with some kind of nondescript elevator music playing in the background, and she whips her head around to glare at her mother, because, hello, it's an actual _house_.

"What's with the squirrels and the daisy patches, Mom?" Caroline gripes, one hand gripping her Parker Academy Homecoming Princess sash and the other jabbing one of her cheer trophies at their new house, where a squirrel was perched on the roof, watching curiously. "We don't _do_ daisy patches. Plastic orchids, maybe. Not…" She crouches down and inspects a flower with a withering glare. "…Things that can die at our neglecting hands."

Liz sighs. "I told you big changes would come with this promotion."

Summer had ended two weeks early for her, with her bags haphazardly packed. The first thing she did when she got off the four-hour flight was to call for two extra-large, extra-cheese pizzas (both were for her. Liz could get a salad or whatever) and hurl Steven's puke-splattered shirt out the window (it landed on Miss Harby's face when she was out walking Bon Jovi, her pug, so Caroline had to give up the rest of her pizza as a peace offering, so that left her with one cold half-eaten slice of pepperoni and too much Dr Pepper). The remainder of the evening was spent halfheartedly flipping through the infomercials on TV and aggressively doing her nails. And then Liz had come home and said, "I have big news!"

"I was expecting a bigger apartment." You know, the usual drill: picture frames artfully placed atop stacked boxes and pizza dinners every few nights. No need for groceries, since they'd just be thrown away whenever Liz gets called to the ever-so-honourable duty of guarding a newer, darker section of New York. "Not suburban hell—"

"You must be the Forbes!" a voice chirps from behind her.

"…lo," Caroline finishes lamely, coming face to face with a woman in a smart salmon-coloured suit. Pantyhose and pearls and Crest Whitestrips smile and all.

"You must be Mayor Lockwood," Liz greets with a warm, albeit tired, smile.

"Oh no, my husband's the mayor," she laughs with her head thrown back slightly. The sort of laugh that you're kind of obligated to laugh along with, which Caroline does, glancing nervously at the squirrels. Not-Mayor Lockwood continues, after recovering, "Call me Carol. I'll show you around your new house."

The welcome mat was perhaps the house's last attempt at charming them, because from the moment Caroline steps foot inside, it's all a bit like the word she hadn't managed to finish earlier.

The walls have stains on them ("Nothing new wallpaper can't fix!") and Caroline's pretty sure the gurgling from the sink is more than just gurgling from the sink ("Check for dead squirrels? Oh Liz, your daughter has a lovely imagination!") and what appeared to be blood stains when Caroline toed the puce-coloured carpets apart ("Sometimes the raccoons here get a little aggressive come mating season.").

"All our new houses were built the same," Not-Mayor Lockwood says with a wistful sigh, and proceeds to gaze out the window with that faraway look in her eyes. "This town has been standing since 1859. Sure, our animal attacks get a little severe from time to time, but our crime rate is virtually zero. You'll have a lot of spare time on your hands, Sheriff."

At this, Caroline scoffs under her breath, but joins Not-Mayor Lockwood by the window anyway. She has to admit, she likes the feeling of being able to take a deep breath without worrying about the state of her lungs

"My whole family grew up here. It's a real tight-knit community." She tugs on her pearls, gives another one of her meaningful smiles. "It's just lovely."

At that moment, a piece of ceiling crumbles to the floor, and a family of overgrown mice scampers out. Between the glowing red eyes and the thunderous scratching against creaky hardwood floors and the deafening screeching, Caroline swears to _God_ she isn't being dramatic when she faints right into Not-Mayor Lockwood's already-waiting arms.

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"Are you quite sure?" Actual Mayor Lockwood asks.

His son Tyler is looking down at his dinner, a pissed off expression on his face. "Dad, Sheriff Forbes already said 'no' in three different ways. What else do you need, Spanish?"

Actual Mayor Lockwood fixes Tyler with an admonishing stare while Not-Mayor Lockwood titters into her white wine. It's all so awkward and textbook-distant-family-ish that she wants to cringe, but the chicken is really good and she hasn't had actual homemade gravy since she was nine (before Liz got promoted to Sheriff), so she focuses on that instead.

"Yes, I suppose the boarding house would be satisfactory," Actual Mayor Lockwood nods. "It's only one night, after all."

"Oh no, we're going to be staying there," Liz says.

Caroline chokes on her mouthful of peas.

"Temporarily," Liz adds, refraining from rolling her eyes as Not-Mayor Lockwood looks at her husband, thin-lipped. "Until we get that pest problem under control. Drink up, honey—you're choking."

Caroline calms down and dodges the predictable foot-nudge her mother sent her way. She supposes she should say something like Thanks for the offer to stay the night, or something, but at that exact moment Tyler started shivering and shaking and upsetting his dinner plate, and Actual Mayor Lockwood snapped at him to go to – for real – the basement.

Weird family.

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It was late night by the time they finally managed to load all of their worldly belongings into one of the Lockwood's spare bedrooms (Not-Mayor Lockwood had graciously offered). Caroline makes sure she has all her suitcases of clothes and toiletries—and trophies and yearbooks and her big framed picture of her winning being crowned Bubblegum Blower of 2009 just a few months ago crammed into one box—before going off to find the local boarding house.

She had expected it to be a long drive, but Actual Mayor Lockwood's directions served better than their GPS system and they reached there in no time.

The fourteen-thousand square-foot residence loomed before them in all its Tudor-style glory. As the car crept up the circular driveway (perhaps not to break the silence of the night), Caroline sees that the medieval Batcave stretched out into the forest beyond. From what she's seen of Mystic Falls so far, she's surprised that the boarding house, of dark panels and weather-beaten stone walls was even standing. When she stands before the double doors (of polished Rosewood and a gilded knocker in the form of a gargoyle grinning eerily at her), the building stretches up into the night sky and eclipses the full moon completely.

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Liz brings her hand down on the front desk bell and immediately a tired-looking man steps out, of plaid and curly hair. "Welcome to the Salvatore Boarding House." He opens up a thick old book, and Caroline hears the spine crack under the weight of all the names scribbled there.

"I'm Zach Salvatore," he tells them. "Do you have a reservation?"

"We do," Liz says. As Zach slides them their master suite key – and of course it had to look all antique-y – Caroline hugs her little box, of all her possessions in the world, close to her chest. The thought of staying there, and not just _there_, but staying, full stop, terrified her.

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She peeks her head out of her room after she's brushed her teeth in the toilet that joined her room to Liz's later. Liz is sitting in one of the damask armchairs, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

"How long are we going to be here for?" she asks.

Liz doesn't answer.

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There's a few days of summer left, so Liz suggests that Caroline go enroll herself at Mystic Falls High. She's too busy to go with Caroline, she says, and Caroline makes a face. She's seventeen, for God's sake. Liz wasn't even there on her first day of _kindergarten_, much less Junior Year enrollment.

She's relieved to see that much of the school is exactly the same as Parker Academy, except with less steel and more trees. Students eat lunch on the Green, which was the front lawn according to the little booklet she's reading from. Mrs A. Hawke hands her a flyer on cheerleading tryouts. Mrs A. Hawke says something about how impeccable Caroline's transcripts are. Mrs A. Hawke tells her they're happy to have her and her mother, bless her, for being the new guardian of the town. Mrs A. Hawke tells her to come see her if she has any questions.

"Yeah, I have one," Caroline says, raising her hand halfway. Mrs A. Hawke looks at her with an expectant smile.

"Why are there like, four memorial boards in the front office?" Caroline thumbs the space behind her. "Aren't you worried about all those animal attacks? Because frankly, I've been here for less than forty eight hours and I'm already freaking out."

"What can I say?" Mrs A. Hawke shrugs, losing professionalism for a moment. "Every town needs a niche."

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This town is weird, Caroline decides.

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Caroline cuts through the cemetery on the way home (home, she thinks to herself with a tiny laugh) and for a cemetery, it's pretty nice there. The air's cool and she can hear birds chirping, and it's bright and airy.

Looking around, there are headstones so old they've practically withered away from all the years, but she can see that they're all the same family names, again and again. Gilbert. Bennett. Salvatore. She thinks she sees a Forbes, but before she can bend down and inspect further, she hears a voice behind her.

"Did you come back for someone?"

She turns around and it's Zach Salvatore. She'd only seen him behind the counter, and in pressed Dockers and worn-out sneakers he's taller than she'd initially observed.

"Excuse me?" she asks, straightening up.

"Nobody new moves her. Ever." Zach (she's allowed to call him that, right? He doesn't look that much older) shrugs and shifts from foot to foot. "And I saw that you're a Founding Family, so…"

Caroline frowns. "A what?"

Zach nods at the gravestone she'd been crouching before. There's mist settling at their feet, and only then does Caroline realize that the time was already creeping into the early evening. "A Forbes."

Caroline sighs. "Coincidence, maybe. My parents never mentioned Mystic Falls before."

"Maybe," Zach says easily. There's that shrug again. "Welcome to town, anyway."

He's about to turn away, but then Caroline's frown deepens and she calls out, "Who mans the front desk when you're not around?"

"My cousins," Zach says without looking back.

"What do you mean nobody ever moves here?" she asks again, but Zach is already lost to the mist.

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She wants to stay in her room and read all day, but hunger drags her out of her room to the dining hall, where they're serving the last of breakfast. She sits alone, nursing her lukewarm pancakes and sees someone with dark hair doing the same a couple of tables away.

For a second, they kind of stare at each other (he chewing slowly, she sipping from her glass of orange juice). He appeared to be sizing her up.

After a while he flicks his blue eyes back to his plate, already disinterested. She kicks herself for not being the first one to look away.

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Caroline raps impatiently on the front desk for the sixth time, but still no Zach appears. Glancing around furtively, she makes sure no one's around before ducking behind the counter and grabbing hold of the phone. Because of _course _her phone has to die out on her when she needs to call Liz, because hello, it's already dinnertime and she doesn't want to be that kid who whines when their mom leaves them alone for even a second, but she's pretty sure she heard an owl hoot somewhere from inside the creaky old dresser and it freaked her the hell out.

(She hates owls. The way they do that totally satanic one-eighty with their heads, just—no.)

She nearly slams the receiver down in the cradle when there's no dial tone and retraces her steps back to her room, frowning worriedly the whole way. She hasn't seen her mother since yesterday morning. They just moved for God's sake; surely Liz can't be immersed in work already?

Caroline turns into a dark hallway and follows the sign that points her to the Salvatore Family library, and the sight and smell of old books calms her right down. It's how daddy would smell after a day of work: cedarwood, sandalwood and leather, mixed in with the sharp smell of bergamot and lemon.

She's walking down a long wall lined with books on the town history (or rather the accounts on animal attacks. She's been here for what, two days, and she's already catching on to the town's campiness), her fingers trailing over bound leather and polished wood. There's a grand marble fireplace in between the two staircases that lead to the central floor of the library, where all the squashy-looking armchairs are. A lone girl sits in one of them, with glowing cappuccino skin and shiny black hair.

The 'hi' escapes Caroline's lips and she almost cringes, but then the girl smiles. "Are you lost?"

"Huh?"

"Nobody comes here. Like, ever." The girl closes the book she'd been reading. _Lapidem, Lunam et Stellas_ reads the cover. Impressive. "Except me. And Stefan too, I guess."

"It's a great library," Caroline says, looking around. She turns back to the girl and rests her elbows on the dark oak banisters. "I'm Caroline."

"Bonnie Bennett." She offers another smile. "How long are you staying here for?"

"Indefinitely," Caroline echoes the words her mother had said to Zach.

Bonnie's eyebrows disappear into her bangs. "Nobody moves here. Ever. So what brings you here?"

Caroline makes her way down the stairs, pausing in front of the fireplace. "I think there's an owl in my room."

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "No, I meant Mystic Falls."

"My mom's the new town Sheriff."

"So you're a Founding Family?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Well," Bonnie says, "Founding Families – especially the Forbes – usually have a tendency of being the town Sheriff. I just put two and two together." At Caroline's silence, she continues. "So you're a Forbes, I'm guessing? Sorry if I'm being all up your butt. We don't have a lot of newcomers."

"With all the animal attacks, I don't see why," Caroline responds.

"You're catching on fast."

The owner of the third member of their conversation (Stefan, Caroline guesses, since apparently no one else goes to the library) is looking down at the two of them with eyes hooded from the dark of the room. Caroline's eyes follow his as he makes his way towards them. He seems to belong in and to the library, quiet and calculated in his steps.

"There's an owl in your room?" he asks, an elbow resting against the mantelpiece. Caroline looks to Bonnie, who seems to nod reassuringly, _he's okay_.

Caroline nods, _yeah_.

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Caroline pauses in front of her door, eyes screwed shut. "Um, I think I—"

"It's alright, I have a skeleton key." Stefan rummages in his pockets and produces a key that looks as ancient as the house. The key turns in the lock with a satisfying _click_, and the door creaks open. At Caroline's questioning look, Stefan explains: "My family owns the place."

"You're a Salvatore?" Caroline asks, switching on the lights in time to see Stefan nod. Their shadows dance against the golden glow of the lamps (seriously, that's how old this place is. Lamps.) as Caroline leads the way to her room.

"Sorry about the mess," she says of the boxes stacked in a corner and her cheer trophies arranged at the foot of her bed, where her clothes books are strewn. She'd been in the middle of organizing her closet when she heard the low hoots.

She stands a little way back when Stefan steps in, but not because of the impending threat of the owl. The casual sweep of Stefan's eyes may go unnoticed by someone other than Caroline Forbes, cheer captain of the four high schools she'd left behind. She's stood at the top of enough pyramids and done enough backflips to know when she'd being scrutinized.

She clears her throat. "The owl?"

"Right." Stefan gestures to the tall dresser by the window with a lift of his eyebrows, and she nods. "Let's get the little guy out."

The 'little guy' screeches louder than Caroline does when Stefan sticks his hand right in its nest, and for a tiny minute owl manages to nip and scratch at every square inch of Stefan's skin it can get, and then it's doing it's weird head dance to the coven of Satan or whatever, and Caroline finds that she has to look away. In one swift movement, Stefan shoves the window open and all but throws the demonic thing out into the trees.

Stefan goes to check on Caroline, who's huddled in an armchair in the opposite corner of the room, hugging herself. Her eyes are wide and her lips unmoving. "You okay?"

Caroline manages an "Uhuh."

"You took that kind of well, actually," Stefan says, dusting his hands off on his jeans. Caroline gives him a skeptical look. "No, really. We once had a boarder who practically thrw himself out the window whenever these owls come and visit."

Caroline's head whips up, eyes wild. "This happens a lot?"

"An unimaginable amount of my time is spent de-owling rooms," Stefan says with a sage nod. That would explain the flat expression on his face as he'd taken care of the owl, with barely a grunt. Stefan leans back against the wall and breathes a laugh through his nose. "Unimaginable."

"So, uh – what happened to that boarder?" Caroline loosens her iron grip on her knees. "Did he ever get his little owl problem fixed?" She averts her eyes. "Just, you know, curious."

"He died." Stefan pushes himself away from the wall. "You don't need to guess. Animal attack. So I guess he was fixed."

"In a way," Caroline says, hoping the casual air in which she agreed with him masked her shock over how this town saw the goings of its occupants.

"In a way, yeah." Caroline trails Stefan to the door. He pauses and turns back to her, like he wants to say something, but then seems to think better of it. Instead, he says, "If you ever find an owl in your room—"

"I'll know who to call," Caroline finishes, suddenly keen to have him out of her room. She holds out his skeleton key. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He takes it. As she's swinging her door shut behind him, he says, seemingly as an afterthought, "I hope you enjoy your stay here."

Caroline has a feeling he's not talking about the boarding house.

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The next morning, Caroline smells coffee and musky perfume and knows Liz is awake. But instead of her mother, there's a note on the table. Caroline opens up a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and eats them dry, filling in the note's blanks as she chews. Liz will (probably) be back by dinner, Caroline (definitely) has to start the day without her (again), and to make sure the flower basket Liz had hung from the tiny ledge outside their window is still alive.

Once done with breakfast, Caroline grabs a mug and fills it halfway with water. Her bare feet pad across the dark carpet as she makes her way to the window of the living room, and she uses her shoulder to push open one of the glass panels.

She pokes her head out to get a good whiff of the flowers, but instead of petunias and morning glories, a tiny, blood-battered very dead owl hangs there instead. Caroline's not sure which is louder—her scream, or the sound of the mug she'd been holding crashing into the asphalt four stories below.

Caroline tries to catch her breath, and decides: This town is _fucking_ weird.

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**tbc**

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**I started playing around with this idea last year, writing down paragraphs here and there, and I guess a story took shape.**

**I didn't really want to post this up until I'd finished it, but my will is utterly _weak_. Review and tell me what you think?**


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